You can’t even sneak onto Walt Disney World property without seeing ten-foot-tall monuments to the most famous cartoon characters in human history. There’s a reason the statue with Walt and Mickey is called “Partners.” Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto – the so-called Big Five – are as indistinguishable from the Disney experience as the color red from Coca-Cola.
Universal Orlando Resort, on the other hand, has never had a lasting mascot. E.T. graced t-shirts the longest, but now mostly keeps to himself as the park’s elder statesman. Hanna-Barbera characters gave way to Nickelodeon characters, which gave way to Illumination characters, give or take a few sea sponges. Woody Woodpecker endures as Universal’s dark horse, an 80-year-old cartoon that started as a walkaround character, earned his own land, provided a cuddly ambassador to the new park next door, and thrives on merchandise to this day despite a limited presence in modern American media. Then you have the current billboard class – Spider-Man, Minions, Shrek, The Simpsons, a dinosaur, the boy wizard whose name escapes me. Even if they don’t stand guard on Kirkman Road, you’ve certainly felt their presence or at least seen them on the walls of the airport stores.
But those billboards could’ve easily been occupied by other familiar faces over the years. Here are six contenders:
1. Casper The Friendly Ghost
If you vaguely remember Casper haunting the Studios, you’re vaguely correct. In the summer of 1995, sets from the same year’s effects-heavy hit took up residence in Soundstage 22. Guests could tour the spooky halls of Whipstaff Manor and commemorate their visit with the usual souvenir suspects. T-shirts with Casper’s translucent face peeking over the old neon Studios logo haunt Ebay to this day. Casper: On Location even earned airtime in contemporary commercials, promising a “behind-the-screams look” at the sixth-highest grossing film of 1995.
Despite beating Mortal Kombat, Bad Boys, and a James Bond at the box office, Casper all but vanished from the cultural consciousness in the years to come. Not that Universal let the iron cool on accident. A Casper attraction was on the drawing board, however briefly. It would’ve allowed guests to steer flying beds with attached candelabras. Not much is known about what could’ve been, but given an entirely different Casper dark ride appearing prominently in the Goddard Group’s 1996 concept art for a Universal Studios park in Germany, it’s clear the company was seriously considering a ghostly promotion.
2. Batman
In a kinder, gentler timeline, there would be no monthly thinkpieces about what Disney buying Marvel means for Islands of Adventure because Universal would’ve landed their first choice, DC Comics.
In the early 1990s, when their hypothetical second gate was known only as Project X, Universal wanted cartoons that could go toe-to-merchandising-toe with the competition down I-4. With the 1992 release of Batman Returns, the Caped Crusader continued his reign as the only superhero with a white-hot presence off the page. That presence, however, is exactly what tanked the deal.
The Landmark Entertainment Group sketched out elaborate plans for a Burton-inspired Gotham, complete with dueling suspended coasters, and a sunnier Metropolis, headlined by a simulator hybrid that would become The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man. DC was onboard, but Time Warner, who owned the film rights to the superheroes involved, wasn’t so keen on sharing custody with another studio. Time Warner wanted 8% of royalties from the new park. MCA, then-owner of Universal, wouldn’t go higher than 6%. Time Warner walked, taking another stable of beloved characters with them in the bargain.
3. Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny may be to Six Flags what Mickey Mouse is to Disney parks, but he was very nearly an Islands of Adventure star. The Looney Tunes characters, no slouch alongside the Mouse on the iconography charts, showed up in the earliest plans for Project X, when it was still unofficially dubbed “Cartoon World.” The scarce surviving concept art for the Looney land includes attractions centered on Wile E. Coyote, Marvin the Martian, Yosemite Sam, and more.
The Looney Tunes fell through in the same negotiations with Time Warner and took the possibility of “Cartoon World” with them. Though Marvel was a convenient substitution for DC, the additions of Jurassic Park and the Lost Continent turned a 2-D world into Islands of Adventure.
4. Astronaut Gary Sinise
From 2003 to 2017, enterprising astronauts on Mission: SPACE received their pre-flight briefings from beloved actor Gary Sinise, kinda-sorta reprising his role from Disney’s first attraction-to-movie attempt, Mission to Mars. Like the best theme park preshows, Sinise’s performance took on a life of its own – see also: Paxton, Bill. Though he was capably replaced by actress Gina Torres, his bone-dry suggestion to “definitely hang on” still echoes in the hearts and minds of fans.
But Disney wouldn’t have had a monopoly on Astronaut Gary Sinise if Universal had gone forward with its plans for an Apollo 13 dark ride.
Universal knew its Studios park would need something to compete with the stampede to its shiny, new neighbor, Islands of Adventure. “The Millenium Project” as it came to be known would occupy the empty space between Back to the Future: The Ride and The Wild, Wild, Wild West Stunt Show that once held sets for the Swamp Thing TV series. While Men in Black: Alien Attack would win the real estate, a revolving door of other properties were considered.
Apollo 13, an Academy Award-winning Universal release that beat Casper as the second-highest grossing film of 1995, would’ve received a heavily themed roller coaster within a scaled-down replica of the Kennedy Space Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building. When the price of that concept raised eyebrows, an outdoor version was pitched instead, but later shot down in the interest of local noise ordinances.
Like Casper, Apollo 13 earned its own behind-the-scenes exhibit, so footage of Gary Sinise as real-life Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly may have once played within the bounds of Universal Studios Florida. But oh, what could’ve been.
5. Pennywise
Pennywise. Pennywise could’ve been.
Another Millennium Project candidate was a dark ride based on the collected works of Stephen King. It wasn’t his first flirtation with a theme park attraction – Disney’s earliest concepts for The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror involved King – but Universal’s attempt got a lot closer to the finish line.
John Murdy, now a celebrity in his own right as the Creative Director for Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights, designed the ride as a Greatest Hits of sorts. While most of the attraction remains a mystery, its climactic scene would’ve pulled the rug out from under even the most seasoned park guests. The cars would’ve come to a complete stop in a room that sure looked like the unload, complete with the usual spiel. But the exit doors would’ve unleashed a Biblical deluge of blood ala The Shining as Pennywise The Dancing Clown emerged from the operator’s booth. Further hell would’ve broken loose from there.
The mass appeal of a permanent horror attraction, something Universal Orlando has still yet to pursue, concerned Creative enough to drop the idea entirely. Well, almost entirely. The fakeout ending was preserved and transplanted into Revenge of the Mummy, another Murdy project.
6. Van Helsing
As hard as it is to imagine a Universal with the likes of Bruce Wayne, Bugs Bunny, and Cujo, it might be harder to imagine a Universal without Harry Potter. But this isn’t the story of how J.K. Rowling gave Universal the greenlight so much as why they were ready, willing, and able to earn it.
At the 2003 International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions Trade Show, the triumvirate partnership of Dynamic Attractions, KUKA, and RoboCoaster unveiled a game-changing ride system. Based on RoboCoaster’s founding concept and realized with KUKA robotic arms on Dynamic’s track system, the RoboCoaster G2 was the next evolutionary step in dark rides.
Universal wanted in and fast.
Satisfied with the progress on Revenge of the Mummy, a pseudo-sequel to director Stephen Sommers’s blockbuster franchise, Universal placed its bets on Sommers’s next project, Van Helsing.
It was supposed to be the hottest ticket of 2004. Universal was so confident about that they paid rent on the village sets in Prague. A sequel was all but guaranteed and, if it took the same amount of time as The Mummy Returns, it would be the hottest ticket of 2005. A theme park attraction was aimed accordingly for 2006.
Van Helsing cost $60 million more than The Mummy Returns and made $130 million less at the box office. Critic Richard Roeper deemed it “one of the dopiest movies of the year” in a kinder review than most.
Seeing Hugh Jackman with a holy crossbow on an I-Drive billboard looked a lot less likely. However, a Van Helsing RoboCoaster G2 attraction was already designed. All that remains is a topographical sketch of the layout, still passed around the usual forums, but all that matters is the footprint.
In late 2006, the year Van Helsing: The Ride was supposed to debut, rumors started. A new Island was on the way, allegedly to carve out the back corner of Lost Continent. Four years later, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey opened on the same plot of land intended for Van Helsing, using the exact same ride system it was designed for.
